Mumbai, Nov. 29: A bullet-riddled Taj still towered magnificently over the harbour this morning, as it has done for 105 years, after the 60-hour siege.

But staff, past and present, were asking how the terrorists knew their way around the heritage building that is a maze even some of them — who had worked at the hotel for years and for whom this was a beloved second home — would be lost in.

“The first and ground floors and basement of the Taj are like a maze. There are many entrances, nooks and crannies that even the kitchen staff don’t know about. Only very old staff, who have been working there for ages, would know how to navigate them. I worked there for four years, living at the hotel for almost 17-18 hours and I can’t navigate the area with ease,” said a former employee who now works for an MNC in the city.

Raymond Bickson, the CEO and managing director of Indian Hotels, said in a statement today: “We have had no indication from them (the investigating authorities) that any employee or contractual staff of the hotel have been involved as part of this terrorist attack.”

The Taj, like most hotels, has two sets of hiring procedures, sources said. The chefs and service staff are usually recruited from catering schools. But there is an army of unskilled casual workers who do the dishes, wash and dry cutlery or stir preparations for hours. Most of them are recruited from among locals, on a need-to-hire basis.

“Sometimes we don’t even know who they are. It’s not easy to keep a count of these huge numbers that come in,” a Taj chef said, requesting not to be named.

The chef, who was in the hotel when the terrorists struck, said: “I am sure they knew the layout of the hotel like the back of their hands. When they came in, I was in the kitchen, I saw people being shot and saw the confidence with which they did it.”

NSG chief J.K. Dutt said today: “They (terrorists) were familiar with the layout.”

Staff who watched the action on television, and saw that in its final leg the operation was concentrated on the first and ground floors, knew this without being told.

“When I saw that the firing and the grenade attacks were concentrated on those floors, I knew that the terrorists knew what they were doing. If someone hid in any corner of those floors, it would take hours to flush them out. Had they been on any floor from 2 to 5 they would have been easily caught — those floors have five entrances and clear space, and are easy to cordon off,” another employee said.